Real Basketball - Heat Stroke

The hardest part about this one was coming up with a headline. Yeah, that’s the best we could come up with. Got a better suggestion?


Heat Stroke did seem appropriate since the Miami offense looks like it has some sort of brain clot. All the symptoms are there – they’re unsure of their movements, tripping over themselves, making bad decisions, making the occasional angry and/or racist outburst. Wait, we’re confusing them with grandpa on that last one. Anyway on the issue at hand. How does a team with 2 of the best 3 or 4 players in the world and a third guy who appeared to be solidly in the Top 20, look so bad on offense? Who’s to blame? Coach Spoelstra? (Anyone else reminded of that fat replacement that was used in Lays potato chips that gave everyone diarrhea when we hear that name?) Pat Riley? The crappy Miami fans? Karma’s bitchiness? To us its easy, none of the above. The only place to put the blame is squarely on the shoulders of the self-proclaimed …. what are they calling themselves these days? Miami Lice? The Supersucks?

The problem on offense is pretty simple really, right now they’re essentially a pick-up team with too many star players who aren’t used to playing with other stars. Sure, they’re talented enough to blow out a Detroit once in awhile but they’re nowhere need clicking. Despite the overwhelming collective talent of LeBron, Bosh and Wade, these guy just don’t know how to play with equals in this type of pressure situation (the Olympics is completely different, lesser athletes, different rules, etc.). These guys have spent almost their entire NBA careers being “The Man” on their team. Now, they’re in a situation where they’re one of many and it’s not always an easy transition. In fact, sometimes it’s harder to be as productive when surrounded by great players. How? It’s about roles.

We know it sounds counterintuitive but when your job was to beat double teams, finish through contact, and shoot off the dribble you get used to doing that sort of thing and, if you’re like these guys, you get quite good at it to the detriment of some of your other skills, like spotting up and hitting the open 20-footer. It’s a universal basketball principle. You don’t even have to be a guy identified by one name to understand. If you’ve ever been in a game where you are one of the best 3-5 players in the gym on a consistent basis, you get what they’ll going through. In any game, the best guys (relatively speaking) have the responsibility to score and make plays for other guys. They have the ball all the time and, when they succeed, they start to gain a (sometimes misplaced) confidence that everything they do on offense, from shot selection to decisions on when and where to pass are pretty much infallible. Nothing feels forced. The result? They shoot a high percentages on difficult shots, score in bunches, get assists, rebound, etc. So, what happens when three of these guys end up on the same team? Most of the time, they struggle. They try to be too nice, over passing, trying to get out of the way, turning the ball over, taking bad shots. Basically, they stop doing all the things that made them effective in the first place in an effort to take advantage of their teammates. It comes back to that confidence thing, that runner in the lane that they thought was a good shot no longer looks as good compared to kicking it to the open guy in the corner so they hesitate and take a shot they’re not committed to (those never ever go in) or try to make a pass that inevitably comes too late. Once that doubt creeps in and you start thinking, the confidence goes, you miss shots you’d normally make, start turning the ball over like crazy and you get the exact same mess so see most of the time Miami plays right now. Don’t get us wrong, none of this should be permanent. These guys are too talented to not adapt and eventually they’ll get comfortable, roles will become more defined, and the offense will start to click.

There are two other things that concern us though.

First, how is the LeBron/Wade hierarchy is going to work out? Let’s all be real, Wade is great, but LeBron is better - a historically significant and unique talent – and they can’t attempt to stand on totally equal footing if the team is going to succeed. With any basketball duo, even those with close to equal talent, the guys have to at least come to a tacit understanding that one will pay off the other. This “taking turns” crap just doesn’t work long term. You need a “default mode.” If you look at the two most recent combos of Top 10 guys at or near their peaks (Jordan/Pippen & Shaq/Kobe), they worked when they had a default mode – Jordan and Shaq as king and Pippen and Kobe working around them. The Bulls made it work for 6 titles but the Lakers falling apart when Kobe decided he wanted to reprogram while Shaq was still viable (lazy but still viable). To maximize their effectiveness, the Heat have to find their default setting and it has to be with LeBron as the #1 guy. He doesn’t have to be the leading scorer, but he has to be the guy with the ball who directs the offense. LeBron’s the better passer, ball handler and distributor. He’s the bigger mismatch and the guy you have to hitch your wagon to. Wade needs to adapt and become comfortable in a new role, playing off LeBron, cutting off his drives, moving without the ball and taking over when LeBron isn’t in the game. The problem is that, technically, it’s still Wade’s team. If they had gone to the Bulls or Knicks it wouldn’t be nearly the same issue but Wade has been a Heat (?) his entire career, won a championship and is beloved by all 273 of their fans. Additionally, the coach doesn’t have the juice to tell Wade to take a backseat and we doubt there’s anyone in the organization (even the deified Pat Riley) who’s going to challenge the face of the franchise. If things are going to work in this battle of titanic egos (that’s not necessarily meant as an insult), Wade needs to be the bigger man - the elder statesmen - and compromise (like a parent bowing to their kids needs once in awhile) in the interests of winning championships. If he doesn’t they don’t win. Plain and simple.

The second issue we see with this year’s team is that since these guys are so used to being the “star” they don’t know how to do the dirty work that’s needed to win. A team can probably get by with a 2-3 star/worker ratio but when its tipped to 3-2 like the Heat have, they’re bound to fall short. The thing about being a star, particularly in the NBA, is that the team is build completely around you, to maximize YOUR talents with complimentary players. Take Bosh for example, he’s a skilled 6’10’ guy who put up solid rebounding numbers throughout his whole career but know he’s a disaster on the boards. When he signed with Miami, we all figured he’d continue to rebound at a high rate and help protect the paint. What we overlooked was that in Toronto, the team was built for him to succeed with guys put on the floor whose job it was to make him look good. They did all the dirty work, boxing out, etc. that let Bosh get the glory. Now, Bosh is the one who has to get his hands dirty. He’s just not that guy. At some point the Heat will get a big guy to block shots and they’ll need to since Bosh is about as soft as cotton in the lane. Same goes for LeBron and Wade, they used to get all type of blocks and steals when they could be the lone wolf in the team defensive concept – now that they are the defensive concept, it’s not quite as easy. They need to understand how to support each other and do all the fighting that their teammates had always done for them. When you make up 3/5 of the team, you no longer have a choice.